Euclid, the Beach & Santa Barbara

In class Tuesday morning, students got a chance to show off their talents for demonstrating Euclidean propositions. They were surprised, they reported, at how complex they now regarded questions that they once considered simple, such as, what is a point? The class was over at 10:30 a.m., but Euclid remained on their minds all day.

Indeed, when they headed up the Pacific Coast after lunch for a day trip to Rincon Beach, several students playfully demonstrated props in the sand! Of course, they also enjoyed more conventional beach activities, such as snorkeling (and seeing baby leopard sharks), sunbathing, swimming, building sandcastles, boogie-boarding, and playing Frisbee and volleyball.

At the end of the afternoon, the men and the women piled into separate buses, changed their clothes, and made the short trip farther up the coast to Santa Barbara. There they split into several groups and enjoyed dinner at a number of the city’s restaurants. While waiting for their food, several students couldn’t resist demonstrating yet more props on their paper tablecloths!

Three students, who are also talented jugglers, wowed passersby on Santa Barbara’s historic State Street:

After dinner some students bought ice cream; others did some shopping, and all returned to the buses at 9:00 p.m. They prayed the Rosary on the ride back to the College, arriving just before curfew. The students then retired for the evening … with visions of propositions dancing in their heads.